Tag: teaching

Evernote

- Wendy St. John 1 Comment

One of the things I struggle with periodically (or perhaps I should say I “refine” periodically) is my organizational strategy for keeping track of things on my computer, particularly teaching materials. I’ve been using Evernote for several years (I adopted the system in November, 2010, and have been using it consistently ever since), and as soon as I started teaching, I set up a system for those materials. I thought I’d share a little bit about the ways it’s working for me, and not working.

Here’s an overview of the system:

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The Art of Possibility

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

I had the opportunity to attend a couple of fantastic events this week sponsored by ieSonoma (Innovate, Educate, Sonoma).

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On Tuesday night, I attended the keynote address: “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin Zander. He is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and he’s also an inspirational speaker who encourages a great deal of participation from his audience. Right from the start, he got us involved by inviting anyone who chose to do so to come up and sit on the stage with him. It seemed like a good idea, so my friend, Kandis, and I both decided to take him up on his offer. (You’ll see me in some of the photos below . . . I’m wearing a purple shirt). These photos were grabbed from the SSU Department of Education’s Flickr:

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Intro Bio Student Comments

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This semester, one of the questions I asked on the final exam (to give them a freebie) was to ask them their favorite organism that we looked at during the course. I’m posting a few of my favorite responses here.

I found this one particularly touching:

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“Thank You. You’ve actually caught my interests in science, which I never felt smart enough for. You’re also one of the most understanding and empathetic professors I’ve had, which helped with my severe anxiety disorder.” 

This is so important to me. Being able to touch people’s lives in a positive way . . . well, that’s why I’m doing this. It feels really good to know that, at least some of the time, I’m hitting the mark.

Asexual Plant

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I received this gift on the last day of class from one of my biology students. She’d grown it from a cutting . . . not only is the plant adorable, but it came with this (scientifically accurate!) caption:

“Asexual plants: only 1 parent required. Parent passes all its genes to offspring. Identical offspring, splits the contents of one cell into two.”

This makes me so happy. 🙂

 

 

Later, I found this comment at the bottom of her final exam:

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Whoa.

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Just sent off both my final exams to be printed by the campus copy shop, and I’m totally caught up on grading (as much as I can be before a bunch of new stuff arrives on my desk next week). But as of right now, I am completely caught up. For the first time in several months. Feels good, but I’m not sure what to do with myself, really. (Except that it’s almost 3 a.m., so probably going to bed would be an A+++ plan). 😀

Strike Averted!

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Awkward selfie; cool t-shirt

One of the most pressing issues on campus this semester was the possibilty of a teacher’s strike, in response to a lack of pay increases for faculty in recent years. “I don’t want to strike, but I will” was our motto, and I was 100% prepared to go on strike, if it had come to that.

In order to minimize the impact on my students, I’d arranged the schedule during the proposed strike week so my students could watch a movie on their own one of the missed days, and take an exam online on the other. (Since my classes were only taught two days a week, the impact on each individual class was relatively small). Either way, I thought this was a good compromise – allowing them to access their education even on the days when I’d cancelled class.

At the 11th hour, we got the word that a tentative agreement was reached, and the strike was cancelled. I’ll admit that I breathed a sigh of relief about that (I genuinely did not want to strike), and I’m also pleased with the way it all played out. We got much of what we wanted out of this agreement, through the time-honored process of collective bargaining. I’m proud to be a card-carrying member of the California Faculty Association.

 

The story below, originally posted in the Sonoma State Star, gives some additional background. (Reproduced in its entirety, as the Star doesn’t keep articles online in perpetuity): 

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Dragon Genetics Student Artwork

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2017-03-22 at 12.29.59 AM.pngOne of the assignments I give my intro biology students is called “Dragon Genetics,” in which they determine the alleles (versions of genes) that a baby dragon will inherit from its parents. Then, I ask them to create an accurate image of the dragon, based on the inherited traits. Most of the students use a dollmaker (from this site). Here’s one I created as an example:

I love to see their dollmaker dragons, but occasionally, I’ll have a few students who do the artwork entirely by hand. Here are some examples from this semester:

Pretty spectacular, eh?